Known is a number of methods for teaching and training mountain-skiers, snowboardists, and water-skiers beyond real routes, and also a number of apparatuses that implement such methods.
Thus, known is a method for teaching and training a slalomist, implemented by an apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 3,524,641, and comprising the steps of left/right moving the slalomist's leg feet alternately in simulation of motions on a bearing surface of a platform, said slalomist standing on a bearing surface of the platform, wherein the slalomist maintains equilibrium using sticks that are supported on a floor or a base.
The disadvantage of the prior art method is inadequacy of motions of the slalomist's leg feet and body to simulated conditions in part of varying a direction of the skis' movement, said inadequacy being caused by the technical solution to implement the apparatus that realizes only a translational motion of a load-bearing member with the platform.
Methods for teaching and training slalomists are also known that are realized by apparatuses in which a rotary platform having a bearing surface for the leg feet, the skis or the snowboard performs a left/right plane-parallel motion in straight lines (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,389) or along an arc (see U.S. Pat. No. 3,511,499; FR 1,486,082) or along an arc on a load-bearing member made as a beam-rod cantilever (NL 8,702,665; U.S. Pat. No. 4,846,463).
With such methods for teaching and training, the leg feet with the skis can take any position in which the axes of the skis can be directed in any direction, and it is also possible to simulate variation in a direction of the motion.
Said methods, however, are ineffective for students who wish to correct own techniques of skiing, have no proper skills yet, cannot locate their leg feet (longitudinal axes of the skis) correctly depending upon a certain position of legs in a trajectory of left/right motion. Owing to absence of dependency between the turn of the leg feet in a sliding plane and a location in the trajectory of left/right motion in said methods, an action onto a slalomist does not reproduce a real situation, and there is impossible to repeat exercises many times and accurately to generate proper necessary skills.
The closest in the technical essence to the inventive method and slalom simulator are a method for teaching and training slalomists, comprising the steps of periodical left/right moving slalomist's leg feet mounted on a movable platform of a slalom simulator, together with the platform, relative to a base simultaneously with rotating the leg feet together with the platform and reversing said left/right movement and said rotation of the leg feet together with the platform, and also a slalom simulator comprising a base, a load-bearing member mounted on the base so as to move to the left/right, a platform mounted on said member so as to rotate and having a bearing surface for the slalomist's leg feet, the skis or the snowboard, and a crank-slotted link mechanism for synchronizing and reversing said movement of the load-bearing member and said rotation of the platform (see U.S. Pat. No. 3,704,885).
The disadvantage of the prior art method and slalom simulator is a discrepancy between an angular position of the leg feet when they move to the left/right and their real position in slalom shussing, because axes of legs (axes of the skis) in extreme points of movement are directed not along an axis of a slalom route as should be in a real route; further, the axes of the skis in a middle position of the load-bearing member (between the extreme points of the left/right movement of the load-bearing member) are not at angle to the axis of the route. As a result, the teaching and training of the slalomist does not create conditions corresponding to the law of motion of the slalomist in the real slalom route.